New life could be coming to historic Debs Store, which fed the Eastside for 90 years

Matt Soergel, Florida Times-Union
·6 min read
Nicolas Debs tends the counter at Debs Store in the 1930s in Jacksonville. The family's old store is now the centerpiece of an ambitious renovation plan to once again provide fresh produce and food to the Eastside, as well as banking and employment services.
Nicolas Debs tends the counter at Debs Store in the 1930s in Jacksonville. The family's old store is now the centerpiece of an ambitious renovation plan to once again provide fresh produce and food to the Eastside, as well as banking and employment services.

The old Debs Store used to be a focal point of Jacksonville's historic Eastside neighborhood, stocking fresh vegetables and meat, hardware, clothes, medicines — whatever the neighborhood needed.

Nicolas Debs, a Catholic immigrant from Lebanon, opened the store in 1921. A few years later he moved it into a red brick building on Florida Avenue at Fifth Street. He and wife Rosa and their children lived upstairs, and everyone pitched in to keep it running.

After Nicolas fell ill in 1948, his sons took the place over, and the Debs family kept it open until 2011. But after 90 years, it was gone.

The store, though, could find a new kind of life if an ambitious plan goes through this year to help the often struggling Eastside neighborhood.

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The City Council is now considering whether to approve a $650,000 grant that would go toward a project proposed by LIFT JAX, Goodwill Inc. and VyStar Credit Union.

In this 2006 picture, Nick Debs tallies up a sale on a mechanical adding machine at Debs Store. He and his brother Gene, who was in hospice care at the time, had run the Eastside store for more than five decades.
In this 2006 picture, Nick Debs tallies up a sale on a mechanical adding machine at Debs Store. He and his brother Gene, who was in hospice care at the time, had run the Eastside store for more than five decades.

Plans call for the renovation of Debs Store and an addition that would roughly double its size to more than 5,000 square feet. Goodwill would run a store that stocks fresh food, while offering employment services upstairs. VyStar would have an ATM and banking services.

The city money would come from a fund set aside to alleviate food deserts, areas lacking the fresh food that Debs Store used to sell. The nearest grocery store is more than a mile away, a tough trek for residents who might not have a car.

"It will alleviate those issues, those challenges and barriers, getting access to healthy nutritious food," said Suzanne Pickett, who lives in the neighborhood and is head of Historic Eastside Community Development Corporation. "And once we get this store open, we’re hoping for others to come in."

An undated vintage photo of Debs Store on Jacksonville's Eastside. The Debs family is among those who hope to renovate and expand the building to sell fresh food and provide other services.
An undated vintage photo of Debs Store on Jacksonville's Eastside. The Debs family is among those who hope to renovate and expand the building to sell fresh food and provide other services.

Pickett is among the people and organizations that have come together to try to make it a reality. The building's owner, Royce Fedd, has backed the idea as well.

A rich past

But no one has pushed for it longer than Joe Debs. His father Nick and uncle Gene were the store's longtime proprietors and the sons of its immigrant founder.

Joe, who is 66, worked in the store as well until he went off to college. The time in the store shaped his work ethic and how he treated people, he said. He's now retired after a career in engineering.

He lives in Charlotte, N.C., now but is often back in Jacksonville visiting family, nudging the project along, donating money to keep it going, reaching out to those who can help.

In 2019 Joe Debs jokes with Suzanne Pickett, the head of the Historic Eastside Community Development Corp., who is working with him to make his family's old store a contributing part of its Eastside neighborhood once more.
In 2019 Joe Debs jokes with Suzanne Pickett, the head of the Historic Eastside Community Development Corp., who is working with him to make his family's old store a contributing part of its Eastside neighborhood once more.

He knows the Eastside and that it needs a place like the old Debs Store. And he thinks his grandfather, father and uncle — the proprietors during its 90 years of business — would be pleased to see its new incarnation.

The Debs family and the neighborhood, which includes many families who've lived there for generations, grew up together. Friendships were made. Credit was extended to families who needed it.

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Business was good for a long time until the neighborhood declined, but Nick and Gene kept it going anyway, probably long after they should have left.

When Nick died in 2011, his funeral procession went in front of the store, just as Gene's procession had five years earlier. Many neighbors and friends came out to pay their respects.

Joe Debs said he was taken a little off guard when he was asked a simple question: What are you doing with the store?

That got him thinking: Is this really the end? Doesn't the neighborhood deserve more?

A 1990s photo of brothers Gene (left) and Nick Debs, who took over Debs Store on Jacksonville's Eastside from their father, Nicolas. The brothers grew up above the store and ran it for decades until they died.
A 1990s photo of brothers Gene (left) and Nick Debs, who took over Debs Store on Jacksonville's Eastside from their father, Nicolas. The brothers grew up above the store and ran it for decades until they died.

'A great legacy'

David Garfunkel is president of LIFT JAX, a group of community and business leaders that is focusing on helping the Eastside neighborhood, which has close-knit families who have lived there for five generations but also faces challenges such as substandard housing and vacant lots.

The group has a program to renovate houses owned by some of the longtime residents, but the Debs Store plan is, he said, the group's "flagship project." Garfunkel said backers are hoping to break ground this spring, with an opening early next year.

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He said that wherever he goes in the Eastside — close to downtown, east of Springfield and west of the St. Johns River — he meets people who tell him of the importance of the Debs Store. "Their eyes light up. They say, 'I used to shop there.' 'When I was a kid, my parents used to drop me off there after school.' It’s quite literally everybody.”

Pickett echoes that sentiment.

“It’s been nothing but really great comments about how generous and caring that family was, what an advocate for the community they were and how much they helped," she said. "They made sure those families were fed. That’s a great legacy to have."

Nicolas Debs, owner of Debs Store on Jacksonville's Eastside, manages the business in the 1920s. The family ran the store for some 90 years.
Nicolas Debs, owner of Debs Store on Jacksonville's Eastside, manages the business in the 1920s. The family ran the store for some 90 years.

'Their social fabric'

Nick Debs, who took over the store from his father, once wrote by hand his memories of what the place stocked. Here is just a taste:

"Groceries, meats, dry goods, hardware and medicines ... ladies’ dresses, slips, stockings & socks and underwear. For men, work clothes, flannel shirts, socks, suspenders, handkerchiefs, belts and ties. We also sold cosmetics, hair dressings, hair nets ... Out front depending on the season of the year Christmas trees at Christmas, watermelon lined up between the posts ... Flour was such a big seller in those days. On top of the flour shelves was kerosene lamps and parts that we sold a lot of in those days ... Going back to the front of the Store facing left was a candy display case with the penny and five cent bars."

When his father got sick, Nick then left the University of Florida and took the store over, joined a few years later by his brother Gene.

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As children, they lived in an apartment above the store (where Nick was born), and they worked there from the time they were boys.

They stayed there their entire adult lives as well: Gene until he died in 2006, Nick until his death five years later. They had been lifetime friends as well as brothers and business partners, and spent much of their spare time together.

In this 2006 photo, 1-year-old Kelsey Williams (right) entertains himself while waiting with brother Casey for his aunt to finish shopping at Debs Store.
In this 2006 photo, 1-year-old Kelsey Williams (right) entertains himself while waiting with brother Casey for his aunt to finish shopping at Debs Store.

Joe Debs, the eldest of Nick's eight children, said his father and uncle made close bonds with their customers and felt an obligation to them, even keeping the store open for years after it made economic sense. After all, it was their neighborhood too, their home.

“They felt they were part of that community," he said. "It was part of their social fabric, being in that corner store.”

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Food desert on Jacksonville's Eastside could end if grocery reopens